Can You Bake a Cake?
Then You Can Reload

By Carolee Anita Boyles,
Contributing Editor

One of Bethany Sharpless's first words was "bugwits," which meant "bullets." And one of her first full sentences was, "Daddy, let's make bullets."

So dad Robin Sharpless-now Executive Vice President of Redding Reloading Equipment-would take Bethany down to the basement, where she would sit in his lap while he worked on reloading. When Bethany was about 5, she says, her dad would take her to the range and let her shoot some of the shells she had helped reload, even though she was still so little she needed help holding the rifle.

"Our entire basement was filled with reloading equipment," Bethany Sharpless said. "It was a bonding activity for us. I enjoyed doing it because I got to spend time with my dad; it's one of my favorite childhood memories."

Many shooters-men and women-are intimidated by the idea of "building" their own ammunition. They fear making a mistake that could have serious consequences, or simply not being able to handle the process.
Sharpless said, however, that if you can follow the recipe on a box of cake mix, you can reload ammunition.

"With some education on how to reload, it's an easy hobby," she said. "You can do it at your own pace, and you can start without a lot of expense if you get beginning equipment at a low cost. It's very economical, and it's one way of recycling. It's attainable for anyone."

Jennifer Pearsall agreed. Pearsall is the former associate editor of American Hunter magazine, and a long-time competitive shotgun shooter.

"Reloading is a controlled activity," she said. "You have to learn to trust the machine, and you get a feel for the process. You aren't going to do anything to activate a primer during the reloading process, so you aren't going to set anything off. You might make a mess of things if you have a hull that doesn't engage right and you spill powder and shot everywhere, but I've never activated a primer, ever."

Although it's theoretically possible to make a crucial mistake when you're reloading, Pearsall said, if you're paying attention to the process and to the equipment, the likelihood of making a serious error is remote.

"You have to watch what's going on," she said, "but it's like watching cars around you when you're driving down the road. It becomes second nature after a while because you know what you're looking for. You'll know it when a wad doesn't seat properly or the shell doesn't crimp the way it should; there's a visual check for a lot of it."

Pearsall agreed with the analogy of baking a cake.

"There's a reason they call them reloading 'recipes,'" she said. "That's part of where the satisfaction in reloading comes from. It's kind of like, 'Oh, look, I made a loaf of bread and it rose.' It's a feeling of, 'I made this and I put it in my shotgun and I hit a clay bird with it.' For me there's a lot of pride in that. I follow the recipes, I trust the loads, and I've killed a lot of clay birds with what I've reloaded."

Pearsall said there are two basic kinds of reloading equipment: single stage presses and progressive presses.

"The single stage press only does one thing at a time," she said. You do one stage of the process-de-priming, priming, resizing brass, adding powder, adding a bullet (or shot)-to a whole batch of shells at once before you move on to the next stage.

With a progressive press, however, you do all the stages together, but in sequence.

"In the case of shotshells, you slide a hull into the first station, and it punches out the old, used primer," Pearsall said. As the hull moves around the press it gets a new primer, powder, a wad, and shot. Then the top is crimped. Each time the press moves a hull forward, you put a new one in position, so you're actually working on several shells at the same time.

"It just goes round and round," Pearsall said. "The press 'knows' when you're done. When you stop putting in shells, it doesn't drop powder any more after the last one goes past the powder stage." There are charts and recipes that tell you exactly what kind of primer and what kind of and how much powder to use to achieve the results you want, whether you're reloading shotgun shells or cartridges for a rifle or handgun.

Sharpless said there's a lot of information available on how to reload, from both manufacturers of reloading equipment and from powder manufacturing companies. There's also a lot of information on the web.

"Every powder company has recipes for its own powders," Pearsall said. "There are whole books of recipes for all kinds of cartridges. You have to be careful to follow those recipes, though; you can't just willy-nilly substitute one primer for another one, or one powder for another. You have to follow the recipe exactly." Think of substituting one ingredient for another as putting salt into a bowl of cake batter instead of baking powder; you won't like the results.

As Sharpless pointed out, reloading can be a bonding activity with your children, even when they're young.

"It's something that-under supervision-is attainable for a five-year-old," she said. "It can create family time."

Sharpless said she also learned some math through the assaying, weighing and measuring that is a part of reloading. Whether that experience led her in the direction of pharmaceutics or not, it has certainly helped her with the chemistry and math she has to take as she gets close to earning her doctorate in Pharmacy.

The next step in the process also can create family time, as you take your youngsters out to shoot the cartridges they've built. If your children are small and you're worried about recoil, one of the advantages of reloading is that you can create downloaded rounds to get them accustomed to shooting, and gradually increase the powder charge as they're able to handle it.

"I don't remember it specifically, but I think my dad downloaded rounds for me for a while," Sharpless said. "When I first started shooting, I couldn't even hold the rifle; I had to put it on sandbags to shoot it."
Any time you can involve your kids in any process of shooting, it's a good thing, and reloading is no exception.

"Reloading helps teach your kids to respect the process, and shows them how they can shoot better," Pearsall said. If they really get into it, as they grow up they may learn to put together precision for hunting or even competition shooting. And at some point they may even get better at it that you are.,